DHMP (DOOM High-res Model Project)

Comments

Doom has always received more attention from players than Hexen. The cold reality is that Doom is a vastly more popular game than Hexen.

That said, I do agree with some of your sentiments but only up to a point. A quick head count of active model makers on the forum reveals three people known to be working on Doom (kurikai, NiuHaka and Tea Monster), leaving "only" veirdo working on Hexen. In terms of user base population vs game popularity, I'd say thats fairly representative tbh.

As for whether or not people should voice their opinions and preferences then I don't see why they shouldn't. Prefacing everything with a "in my opinion" on a community forum is rather unnecessary (although it does sometimes help, yes).

Remember that after two decades of playing these games, each player will have developed a strong mental image of what the lowres sprites actually look like to them. Its only natural when a 3D model doesn't conform to that mental image that users will voice their opinion on what they think is "wrong". Doesn't mean there necessarily is anything wrong, as you say, its subjective interpretation and creative license.

Where I certainly do agree, is when an individual tries to assert their own mental images over an artist's creation when they miss the whole idea of "creative license". Hires resources don't have to use the same style as the original game, that is up to the individual. And like you say, if one doesn't like it; simply don't use it.

The problem with creating model replacements is that there are a large group of people who will just never accept them as they are models. They are ultra-purists who won't ever accept anything with more than 2 dimensions. You are never going to please that crowd, so deliberately hobbling your work to fit the confines of 255 pixels is just silly.

The other problem is that if you do religiously stick to the proportions and style of the sprite, the level of detail and physical proportions that work in sprite form don't always work in 3D form. People will compare your 3D model with other models, not the sprite, and your work will be labeled as 'cartoony'.

I have seen this happen on other forums where people are trying to create replacements for old game assets. It's not just a thing with Doomers. Take it from me, there really is no point in going down that road. Nobody is going to be happy at the end of the day.

I approach it on the basis of "What would it have looked like if Id had this technology back when the game was created?" I try to make something that looks good for what it is and would be fun to play against. I use the sprite as a guide, not a strict blueprint.

As to Hexen, I've only played the demo, it never really grabbed me like Doom and Heretic did. I think if you are going to put a lot of effort into making something, your heart has to be there. I've made a few models for Heretic. I've actually got a Golem model somewhere.

The problem with creating model replacements is that there are a large group of people who will just never accept them as they are models. They are ultra-purists who won't ever accept anything with more than 2 dimensions. You are never going to please that crowd, so deliberately hobbling your work to fit the confines of 255 pixels is just silly.

Too bad for them. They can either adapt to progress or stick with no addons. Beside, the sprites are so ridiculously low detailed that one cannot really tell what the monster is truly supposed to look like and much of what each part of a sprite is supposed to represent is guesswork. The best Doomsday cyber demon model so far seems to be the Sitter one (the one I'm using currently), but this one may be a good replacement. Damage stages and a death animation is a must, of course. I also assume this has normal maps and is hi-poly. This is good. Also it will be neat if they introduce a normal map texture pack to replace the hi-res texture pack soon.

Maybe you can make the eyes emit lighting like deferred or something or at the very least a glow map or animated glow map? Eyes being a light source, even flashing, would be so neat. Come to think of it, deferred lighting would be an engine feature, not a model feature.

Another method would be to add a submodel with the desired parts fullbright plus some extra alpha plane geometry for the glows. Of course, it would certainly be "easier" from an artists perspective to simply add a glow map and let the renderer sort it out...

I do notice that flying creatures and even some ground based creatures ted to get stuck into each other, as if true 3D worlds hasn't been implemented and it is still based off of 2D. The caco, pain elemental, and lost souls have this issue. Even the player (you) sometimes gets stuck into them, can't get out, and ends up dying as a result.

What I mean is it seems they get stuck because there is a problem with z axis aka 3D. Going over or under a baddy causes them to get stuck, despite a few years ago I recall some code changes that supposedly were said to fix this. So it seems like the engine isn't truly 3D (the world) is why they get stuck, I'm guessing. It is like collision detection being activated regardless of the height the object appears and based on x and y and without z, as if any height is read as the same collision-wise, like a tube and not a point because the world isn't true 3D or something. I wasn't referring to sprites or models, just the world and how it seems to handle moving objects and the maps.

Vanilla Doom's play-ism was largely 2D with little done in 3D. Vanilla Heretic and HeXen both made certain elements of the play-ism more 3D (in Heretic and HeXen bad guys can, largely flawlessly, fly over/under each other for one example).

Doomsday has changed many of the 2D elements to 3D, though not all of them, with Lost Soul attacks (lost soul attacks can hit you regardless of height above/below you) and hit scan spreads (try firing the DB Shotgun directly upward or downward for instance) being two examples of things Dday has never updated to 3D.

In the 1.9 series, it is my understanding that rather than continue to retrofit Vanilla Doom’s individual pieces of 2D code with 3D, that Deng Team planned to rewrite everything in 3D and then offer settings to allow the user to imitate Vanilla Doom and/or earlier Dday’s ‘partial 3D’.

However, it is my understanding that currently this has been put on hold, leaving certain elements partially complete and thus there are in fact currently a few small regressions versus earlier Dday’s partial 3D (but also, more things are done in 3D), such as your specific example.

I think the proportions match the sprite, or are looking better than the ultra short sprite. Old doom sprites look too cartoony and short anyways, especially the soldiers.

We are going for the sprite look in this model project.

The DMP2 is a DOOM community effort to recreate the original DOOM,DOOM2, and Final DOOM sprites as 3D models, while keeping the same style and feeling of the originals(highly important) and be to be used by DOOM engines that support it.

The DMP2 is a DOOM community effort to recreate the original DOOM,DOOM2, and Final DOOM sprites as 3D models, while keeping the same style and feeling of the originals(highly important) and be to be used by DOOM engines that support it.

I recall you saying there is a cartoony more original version and a more realistic version for each though, which is good if true. Maybe same model but 2 different skins.

I will look at the midriff, as I thought that there might be something missing when I was sculpting it. I have built him from a standard human base, so there shouldn't be anything missing in the middle, but I see what you mean from looking at it.

I think it is neat. Also, why would the imp be most problematic. I have no experience making models, but it looks far simpler in detail variety than a spider mastermind or cyberdemon would have. Perhaps the zombie troops with different individual faces like what somewhat exists in the old jdrp is kind of difficult.

And yes, like Kuri said, less shadow is good. Also it would be neat to see how damage stages and death animation would appear on this when that is implemented. Hopefully all future monster models will have these or they just lose their fun factor.

It's most problematic because that sprite was smallest head in compare to rest monsters. Secondly - I'm pretty sure that this one is not making from pictures of clay-model, it was rather hand-drawn. Thirdly - in case of such small head of original it is very easy to make his hires version completely unlike original or just stupid (most models of Imp I've seen have that kind of overall look). Yes KuriKai, that is sculpt. I'm working currently on skin, details and animation.